Why am I still Crying
by Yulan the Exhausted
Summary: Mello Tribute, for Mello's birthday. MelloHalle, with OCs involved, though not affecting the major story.


Disclaimer: Yulan does not own Death Note (although it would be great to own one) . Yulan only wants to express her ideas about the whole piece, and to write about her favourites. If you are a supporter of Matt/Mello (vice versa) or any other pairings that involve Mello, please don't punch me for what I have written.

**Why Am I Still Crying**

By Yulan Mynatur

_Although I tried hard to live on without you, I still cried when I was alone._

She stood at the entrance of the graveyard, her face under the shadows. Her companion made a gesture and told her that she could go in.

"There he is, Miss Bullock." And no one else was with her other than the graves as her companion went back to the gates.

Even without anyone telling her, Halle could tell that it was his grave. Black marble with golden lines, the gravestone stood there, without a photo like any common gravestone. The name that she knew was not carved on the tombstone, and his real name was there instead. 

_Mihael Keehl_.

Halle knelt down and placed the bouquet of paper flowers in front of the grave. A bouquet of roses, folded with black papers. She had a feeling that he would not like to receive fresh flowers, so she made paper flowers instead.

"Have you found peace after death, Mello?"

--

Halle could not express her surprise when a man appeared at her doorway, soaked in blood, yet still pointed a gun at her. She had not met him before and did not know who he was, and she quickly let the heavily injured man in. He lost conscious right away after entering the house.

She had received some medical training in colleges years ago, and she was amazed that she had not forgotten any of the training. She did not have much medical experiences liked working in hospitals, but she had confidence in dealing with serious injuries.

After bandaging the wounds, Halle started to wonder about the man's identity. _With this kind of serious injuries, he should received treatments in hospital instead of knocking on people's homes with a gun in his hand. But then, even if he tried to go to the nearest hospital, he was going to die on the way to there,_ she thought. But then, the man's health was much more important than his identity; she was just helping out. As for the gun that he carried with him, Halle hid it away from his reach.

He regained conscious later that day.

She was about to leave for the headquarter when he woke up and fell onto the ground as he tried to stand up. "You shouldn't try to leave the bed so soon," She went back to the guest room and said.

"Halle Bullock, or should I call you Halle Lidner?" He managed to stand up in the end. "I have to talk with you."

She froze. Why would he know both her codename and her real name? "Who are you?" She asked cautiously and was ready to pull on a fight.

"I've killed a lot of people in the SPK, and left 3 people in the end." His piercing right eye was staring at her, trying to give her pressure. "I guess you know who I am for now, right?"

"Mello..." She tried hard not to show her shock on her face.

For seven days, Mello settled himself in Halle's house and recovered from his injuries. Halle once overheard him talking to a young man on phone, and Mello seemed to have declined the young man's offer to stay at his place. He and Halle had few conversation, and most of the it was about the Kira case, with him trying to get all information that Near knew from her mouth.

One thing that Mello annoyed her was the fact that he refused to call her "Lidner" liked Near did.

"If Near calls people with their surname, I'm not going to do the same." That was his explanation. She was annoyed for the fact that she was so used to be called with the name "Lidner" that she couldn't react to people who called her with her name.

When Halle spent her first night with Mello in her house, she already felt that she could not control her temper. He was following her all around in the house, even when she was having a bath. _What's wrong with this man?_

Even worse, Mello's reply to her question was simple.

"I have to make sure that you won't tell Near that I am here."

"I won't tell him unless you want me to." She fought back.

"Are you regretting for saving me now?" He remained standing there and asked.

"No." She bust out without thinking.

"Then which side are you really on, then?" Mello seemed to be interested. "You are an SPK member under Near's control, yet you save the one who wants to beat him from death."

"I'd say that I'm not on either side. Although you might have taken a different path that I may disagree, both you and Near's goal is the catch Kira. We're like-minded in a way." She could not explain about not hating him though.

"Hn." He did not look convinced, but he did not say anything.

There were moments when they were not talking about Kira.

"What's with it, Halle?" Mello snarled when he noticed that Halle was looking at him without blinking.

"I was wondering why you have such interests in eating chocolate." She replied.

"A habit that I can never get rid of." He shuddered. "Not have I really tried to get rid of it anyway."

"An addiction?"

"You can call it in that way." He took a bite from the chocolate and answered casually. And then it was silence; Too quiet that Halle had to try searching for some other topics to talk with him.

"Mello, are there some special meanings behind the rosary that you wear?" She noticed the silver cross that laid on his chest and asked.

"The only thing that I had before entering the Wammy's House. The priest had destroyed all the other things that related to my family." He seemed not to be interested.

"Priest?"

"He claimed that my family was the source of disease that killed people nearby. All had been burnt in a fire and I was left. Then when I was wandering in the streets, I was found...Wait, why am I telling all this to you? Just stop asking, Halle." He seemed to be surprised by the fact that he had told her something that he usually did not tell anyone.

"So you don't believe in God then." She made a statement instead of a question.

"I am a sinner which is rejected by both heaven and hell. God has abandoned me, and destiny tricked me into this state." Hearing such an answer, Halle decided that all the people from Wammy's House were truly people with crazy minds.

"Then, what do you think about Near?" She chose another question she had in her mind.

" Halle, I dare you write down all the things you want to know in a list and give it to me instead!" Mello seemed to be annoyed. "If you can't get at least thirty questions in the list, I will not answer anything that you ask! And Near is a nasty, lazy, albino, cunning, evil kid and I can tell that from his face in the first moment I saw him in the House!"

And when Halle gave the list to Mello, the expression of his face was simply marvelous.

"Great, Halle. Altogether fifty questions?" And Halle could only force herself to laugh as a reply.

In the end, Mello answered some of the questions and left the rest unanswered. He told Halle that his favourite color aside black was gold, his birthday was on the thirteenth day in December, he hated Near for his know-it-all attitude, the reason why he chose mafia to join after he left Wammy's House, he would see illusions when he did not eat chocolate for more than two days, he could eat other food when he could not find chocolate. Some unanswered questions mainly concerned about his background and interests.

"Don't ever tell anyone about this," He warned. "I won't go easy on you if you fail to keep that promise."

"I won't ever tell anybody, and since you trust me, you should know fairly well that I never fail to keep promise." She changed a tone. "Or do you want me to swear?"

"That's fine," He frowned. "Just don't say anything about religions."

--

Halle did not even dare to think about the rest of the things that happened in the period of having a young man staying at her home. She felt like she had committed a sin with him, and she did not want to recollect the memories of that.

--

She still had conversations with him on phone after he took the photo away in the headquarter. However, those were short conversations, and Halle found them too short. to Halle's surprise, she started to wait for his calls. She often called him when Near had found something or told her to tell him some specific clues, and when she had not called him for one day, she felt uneasy.

Even though Halle knew pretty well what had been going on with her, she refused to accept the truth. _Not with him, not with Mello. He is just a man, a rival of Near, and one who seeks the way to catch Kira._

When she became Kiyomi Takada's guard, she said nothing about it when having conversation with Mello. He would have known it without her speaking, Halle believed. As far as what she knew, Mello had been watching over Kiyomi Takada, Light Yagami and Misa Amane with the help of a young man called Matt.

In her last call with Mello, Halle started to worry about Mello. It was not his usual style, not his way of speaking. He seemed to know something and was going to do something alone. She wondered if he was trying to catch Kira before Near had any movements, as she told her about Near's final showdown with Light Yagami.

But something was wrong. Halle knew that something was wrong, yet she could not tell what exactly was wrong.

"Just don't die, will you?"

Only then she accepted her feelings towards the man that she had saved that day.

--

But he died in the end, didn't he.

The last time when she saw him, he made a request to kidnap Kiyomi Takada. She let go of the woman, and when everything had ended, she regretted doing so.

If she had rejected his request, Mello might not have to die. _But then again, he had done the thing he thought to be right._ She thought bitterly.

"Isn't it ironic, Mello? You claimed that God had abandoned you, yet the church became your grave," She said silently. "As what I have promised when you died, I have come."

"Miss Bullock, it's time to leave." Her companion suddenly showed up behind the blonde, with a young child.

"Mother, what are you doing here?" The young child asked and pointed at the graves. "Were they your friends?"

"They were...the ones that your mother cared about." She chose words carefully. Upon hearing this, her companion turned to her with puzzled yellow eyes. She just shook her head and stood up. "We're leaving," she repeated the words of her companion.

As they went away, her companion suddenly gave her a handkerchief. She looked confused, until she realized that she had been crying.

"Why am I still crying, after so many years?" She thought as she wiped away the tears. Then she realized. Even though she tried to forget about the past and raised their daughter with all her heart, she still could not forget about the man whom she loved. She was not going to forget such an important person in her life, nor was she going to wipe the sorrow and loneliness after he was gone.

Halle shook her head to wipe away her thoughts and quickly went away, leaving the cold stones alone with the dead.

- The End -


End file.
